��Recollections of Dr. Johnson
��It is certain that, for such kind of mortifications, he never ex press' d any concern ; but on other occasions he has shewn the most amiable sorrow for the offence he has given T , particularly if it seemed to involve the slightest disrespect to the church or to its ministers 2 .
I shall never forget with what regret he spoke of the rude reply he made to a Rev d Divine, a Dignitary of the Church 3 , on his saying that men never improved after the age of forty-five 4 . ' That is not true, Sir/ said Johnson. ' You, who perhaps are forty-eight, may still improve if you will try ; I wish you would set about it ; and I am afraid, 5 he added, ' there is great room for it 5 ; ' and this was said in rather a large Party of gentlemen
��1 See ante, i. 453, where Murphy says that 'when the fray was over Johnson generally softened into re pentance.' He wrote to Dr. Taylor in 1756: ' When I am musing alone, I feel a pang for every moment that any human being has by my peevishness or obstinacy spent in uneasiness.' Letters, i. 72. More than twenty years later he said in Miss Burney's hearing : 'I am always sorry when I make bitter speeches, and I never do it but when I am insufferably vexed.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary , i. 131.
2 Yet when some clergymen in his company ' thought that they should appear to advantage by assuming the lax jollity of men of the world] he said, * by no means in a whisper, " This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive." ' Life, iv. 76.
3 Dr. Barnard, Dean of Derry; afterwards Bishop of Killaloe. Ib. iii. 84; iv. 115. He is 'the good Dean ' of Goldsmith's Retaliation,
'Who mix'd reason with pleasure and wisdom with mirth.'
4 * Of this assertion (writes Miss Edge worth) my father always doubted the truth, and he opposed the prin ciple, as injurious to the cause of
��knowledge and virtue, and tending to lessen the energy and happiness of a large portion of human exist ence.' Memoirs of R. L. Edgeworth, ed. 1844, p. 476.
Swift seems to refer to this belief when he makes the spot in the fore head of every Struldbrug change from time to time till he became five and forty, when 'it never admitted any further alteration.' Voyage to Laputa, ch. x.
5 Boswell recorded in his note book : 'The Dean of Derry, Dr. Barnard, was maintaining in 177-, that a man never improves after five-and-forty. Johnson very justly took the opposite side. "Why should not a man improve then," said he, "if he has the means of improvement?" The Dean per sisted in his errour. Johnson an grily said, " I do not say but there are some exceptions ; pray, Sir, how old are you ?" The Dean was much hurt ; came over it again and again at the time, and afterwards wrote the verses which ironically intro duces [sic] Johnson's politeness. But the Dean told me at the dinner of the Royal Academicians, 23 April, 1776, that he had a very great re-
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